The Pink Flamingo :: I Am Offended by the Minutemen

Today I saw this posting on Immigration Talk with an American. “Enlist in the Minutemen, Save Your Country.”

Do you people who claim to be “minutemen” even know who the Minutemen were?

On June 17, 1775 MY ANCESTOR, “Paul Dustin fought side by side with Samuel Rowell at the battle of Bunker Hill.” Paul Dustin later signed the Association Test promising to oppose the British. According to our family history, “He was mustered out of Col. Daniel Moore’s Regt., 1776 to serve in Capt. Wm. Stillson’s Co., in col. Isaac Wyman’s Regt., 1776. Again drafted out of col. Moore’s Regt, to serve in Capt. Sammuel McConnel’s Co. for two months from July 18, 1777.’ He also served in the French & Indian’s War.

AN ILLUSTRIOUS FAMILY OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
My family arrived, illegally, in New England on 1633.
Thomas Dustin = Elizabeth Wheeler (another illegal immigrant)
Thomas = Hannah Webster Emerson (matriarch)
Timothy = Sarah Johnson (abolitionist, feminist)
Paul = Betsey Shannon
Timothy = Sally Little
Moses = Janette Hill
Amos Dustin = Kate Miller (murdered June, 1863 by Crazy Horse)
Alma Dustin = Albert Perkins
Ruby Perkins = Paris William Reidhead, II
Albert Perkins Reidhead = Sarah Jane Froehlich
Moi

THE RANT
(and it’s been a long time coming!)
My ancestor, Paul Dustin is a recognized DAR Patriot Ancestor. He was a Minuteman. Do you know who they were? He served in John Stark’s regiment as a real minuteman at Bunker Hill.

“…When the New Hampshire militia arrived, the grateful Colonel Prescott allowed Stark to deploy his men where he saw fit. Stark surveyed the ground and immediately saw that the British would probably try to flank the rebels by landing on the beach of the Mystic River, below and to the left of Breed's Hill. Stark led his men to the low ground between Mystic Beach and the hill and ordered them to "fortify" a two-rail fence by stuffing straw and grass between the rails. Stark also noticed an additional gap in the defense line and ordered Lieutenant Nathaniel Hutchins from his brother William Stark's company and others to follow him down a nine foot high bank to the edge of the Mystic River. They piled rocks across the twelve foot wide beach to form a crude defense line. After this fortification was hastily constructed, Stark deployed his men 3-deep behind the wall. A large contingent of British with the Royal Welch Fusiliers in the lead advanced towards the fortifications. The Minutemen crouched and waited until the advancing British were almost on top of them, and then stood up and fired as one. They unleashed a fierce and unexpected volley directly into the faces of the fusiliers, killing 90 in the blink of an eye and breaking their advance. The fusiliers retreated in panic. A charge of British infantry was next, climbing over their dead comrades to test Stark's line—this charge too was decimated by a withering fusillade by the Minutemen. A third charge was repulsed in a similar fashion, again with heavy losses to the British. The British officers wisely withdrew their men from that landing point and decided to land elsewhere, with the support of artillery.

Later in the battle, as the rebels were forced from the hill, Stark directed the New Hampshire regiment's fire to provide cover for Colonel Prescott's retreating troops. The day's New Hampshire dead were later buried in the Salem Street Burying Ground, Medford, Massachusetts.

While the British did eventually take the hill that day, their losses were so great (especially among the officers) that they could not hold the positions. This allowed General George Washington, who arrived in Boston two weeks after the battle, to place cannon seized at the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga on Dorchester Heights. This placement threatened the British fleet in Boston Harbor and forced General Howe to withdraw all his forces from the Boston garrison and sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia….”

THE RANT CONTINUES
These were men who were ready at a moment’s notice to fight the British. They were willing to give up their lives and their homes for freedom. They fought bravely for freedom against tyranny. As a direct descendant of one of these minutemen, and related to at least a half dozen others, I find the anti-immigration bastardization of the word “Minuteman” to be insulting and offensive. It corrupts everything those brave patriots stood for.